Even 8-month-old girl not spared

LAHORE: Doctors at the Children’s Hospital in Lahore are struggling hard to save the life of an eight-month-old baby girl who was raped by an 18-year-old youth in the Nankana Sahib district of the Punjab, on Thursday.

According to doctors, who also performed a surgery on the poor soul, the infant’s condition is too critical and grim to be explained.

The resident of Jhugian Garnalian was yet to gain consciousness and she was battling for life in the ICU till late Thursday night. “A special medical board will explain her condition to hospital MD on Friday (today),” an official said. But chances of her survival were slim, hospital sources said.

Police sources said the girl was sleeping when merciless youth, Hashim, forced his entry into her cottage. He fled the spot leaving the infant in a pool of blood. The poor parents were at work in the nearby fields when the brute assaulted the child.

First, the girl was rushed to a nearby clinic where the doctors advised the parents to rush her to the Lahore Children’s Hospital. The gruesome incident took place in limits of Sadar Shah Kot Police.

“We have arrested the rapist after registering a criminal case against him on the complaint of victim’s father,” Nankana Sahib DPO Abdul Ghaffar Qaisrani told The Nation by phone.

However, police sources said the local police are handling this criminal case, worst of its kind, in their typical manner and giving protocol to the resourceful accused in the lock-up. An investigator said the youth has confessed to the crime.

The poor family has appealed to Punjab CM to ensuring exemplary punishment to the rapist.